Shelf Reliance Giveaway

Most of you know that I am super into emergency preparedness. I get emailed for the SHELF-RELIANCE company and this week they are having a giveaway for a 72-hour kit. It looks awesome. I've never done an online giveaway before, but this would be awesome to have. Click HERE to check it out...but hurry it ends at NOON today.

Ode to Der and It's a boy!!!!

Me and Deruchette- May 2004

No, I'm not pregnant...my best friend Deruchette is though! So for those of you who don't know her, I will introduce you.

Deruchette is from St. George and came up to Cedar to go to SUU the fall of 2002. I met her at when she started working at Papa Murphy's where I had worked for a year. We became friends pretty fast, mostly because she's the nicest person in the world. Seriously.

So in May of 2003, we moved into a basement apartment together along with our friend Julieann. It was a crumby apartment, but we had a good time. By fall we moved into a big house near the DI where we were in the University 4th ward. By this time I was already engaged to Silas so I only lived in that house for the fall semester. Durng that time Chette met Brett through the ward so Silas and Brett became friends.

A few months after Silas and I were married, she and Brett got engaged and were married in May 2004. We did a lot together, playing games at each other's apartments. In March 2005 Silas and I moved to the Northfield Apts by the hospital and we convinced Brett and Chette to move in right across from us a few months later. That was the best thing EVER! Cleod was a baby and their first, Kianna was born 2 months after they moved. We did everything together for almost 3 years. In fact, we ate together almost ever night.

In October 2007, they both their first house far away near the SUU farm and the next February we moved into our townhome so we're like 7 miles away now. It's sad some days when we think of how nice it was to be so close, for our kids to play together, to eat with each other and just have someone close to talk to when we were having hard days.

We're still close though and we always will be, I'm sure. Our husbands like being with each other, our kids are all friends and we can have fun just hanging out.

So speaking of kids, Chette has two girls, Kianna and Leksi. Kianna's almost 4 and she's 8 months younger than Cleod and Leksi just turned 2 and is 9 months younger than Ryan. NOW she's expecting her third and he'll be a year and 2 months younger than Grant.

Yes, HE!!! If you know Chette, you know that they didn't find out what they were having with their first 2 kids...which I have to say DROVE ME CRAZY! But they can do whatever they want, that's fine. I was watching her girls yesterday while they were at the ultrasound and when they got back to get them, she said, "It's a boy!" and I was SOOOO happy! For one thing, I know boys, I have boys stuff and THEY FOUND OUT! This saves me a few months of anxiety and I can start spoiling him earlier than planned! I'm so excited! I love her kids so much and they've always been apart of my life. Maybe it's a little bit like being a grandma. You get to fall in love with another beautiful soul but I will get to send him home to his mommy.

YAY!!

My beautiful boys...

Thanks again, Meredith!!!

Rowley Reunion

Our annual Rowley Reunion was great this year. We had a few issues, like Ryan throwing up on our sleeping bags Thursday night, but overall we really enjoyed camping this year.

My dad and his brothers have property that's only about 20 miles from our house, so we are spoiled as far as traveling goes but we had family there from Missouri, Kansas, Mississippi, California, Nevada, Arizona and Idaho.

Here are some photos of my big boys being silly.

Including my Grant, there were 5 baby boys born since last Reunion, two of which are my nephews. We also had three new "men" added to our ranks, one who just married my cousin Becky a month ago, another who's engaged to another cousin and a boyfriend of a cousin who has been around for a while but this was his first Reunion with us. I don't think we scared any of them away.

Here are some of my neices and nephews...

And then, of course this was Grant's first camping experience. He started crawling last Sunday but was held the whole Reunion. He got spoiled but when we got home was excited to crawl around the house. He loved EVERYONE and was happy as long as I wasn't in sight. These are photos of Grant with my dad, my mom, my brother RJ, Uncle Glenn and Aunt Jeri.

BEFORE reunion, my cousin Meredith who is a professional photographer in Missouri took photos of my boys. They are AWESOME! Click here to see a few and I will post more soon!

Veggie Babies

A few weeks ago, we planted a garden. It has been so much fun to take care of. The boys have been really good at leaving it alone and Cleod is very interested in how it's growing. We have several tomato plants. One has at least 5 tomatoes on it already and lots more coming. Right now we also have a lot that are just coming out of the flowers.

Isn't it amazing? It's a tomato, growing from that bud. Click on them to make the photos bigger. I'm pretty proud of them.

Here's a shot from a different plant. This tomato is a little bigger than the other one. It's probably the size of a dime. We have a couple that are bigger than golf ball size also.
We also have several pepper plants that are going to be very "fruitful." This is even more amazing to me...a tiny pepper is being born. (Wow, I'm corny, but this is REALLY cool.)

This is again from a different pepper plant. Silas calls it the pepper butt. I think it's so awesome to see this stuff grow. I guess you can call me a city girl.
And here's a photo of Grant, taken only a few minutes ago. He was SUPER tired and had his arms up like that for about 5 minutes just staring.

A new addition to our family...

Actually, we have two new members of our family. Introducing...


OK, so she's not so hot, I know. Her stay at our home is mostly to make this one better. His name is Gordon, by the way...

CUTE, huh? Silas has always wanted an old bug and now we have to. They are both 1971 Super Beetles and Silas is planning on fixing Gordon up. We found them both on Craig's list; one was in Mesquite and the other in Enoch.

Here's Silas, Mr. Super-Happy-Pants. He's pretty proud of that garage full. And yes, my pretty car has to park outside for a while.

SORRY!!

So, I blogged about canning butter in March but now have read more on the subject and it is NOT RECOMMENDED!! I got it out of a book, which I still think is great, but I read on the Everyday Food Storage blog today that it can store botulism. NOT GOOD! So, please don't follow my example. I am waiting for a reply on whether or not I can use the canned butter for cooking and I will update you all...just in case your interested. (I know at least Der will be interested. Everyone else can just roll their eyes and continue to think I'm crazy.)